Clerks 3 is almost completely done, according to Kevin Smith, with only a few minor steps left before he can say it’s completed. Aside from some color correction, a few audio notes, and the need to finalize the vanity logos (called “reel zero,” these are the cards that come up before the movie starts for studios involved with the production), the movie is done — and it sounds like today might be the day it’s officially locked in. Speaking with his co-host Marc Bernardin on Fatman Beyond, Smith broke it down, saying that all but the last reel of the movie have already gone through quality checks on sound, and that one he will do tonight.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Smith says he will also go in and see the finalized version of the picture, which looks slicker than the dailies he has been using for editing. He noted that they actually surprised him pleasantly with some of the sound design in the movie, and that he didn’t expect any big surprises with the picture, since the director of photography already gave him a preview.
“We’re all pretty much done here with Clerks 3,” Smith said. “We’re picture locked with the exception of reel zero….Today I watched reel 1, 2, 3, and 4. Really great, I had very minimal notes. I’m more of a fan of use what’s on the track, since most of my movies are all dialogue, but they sound designed some nifty things into it. The character Randal has a heart attack in the motion picture and they did some cool things with the heart attack moment, audio wise, that I was like ‘oh, fucking right on.’ And we watch reel 5 tomorrow. They wanted a little more time to do reel 5. So tomorrow I go and watch the DI playback, which we used to call color correction back in the day…so I’m going to see the movie the way the DP always saw the movie, which is different from what I’ve been seeing in all the dailies I’ve cut together. Tomorrow will be interesting….It’ll be like ‘oh! So that’s what Clerks 3 looks like,’…and at night we’ll go back to the sound mix and listen to the last reel, reel 5, and any fixes from reels 1, 2, 3, and 4.”
You can him talking about it below at around the 7-minute mark.
The movie, which is set to be distributed by Lionsgate, is Smith’s first new feature film since Jay & Silent Bob Reboot, in which Brian O’Halloran’s Dante Hicks, the point-of-view character in the original Clerks and its 2006 sequel, Clerks II. That movie was the last time fans got a look at Jeff Anderson’s Randal Graves, who appears to be the lead in Clerks III.
Randal, who has always been something of a wish-fulfillment character for Smith himself, is set to suffer a life-threatening heart attack in the movie, as Smith did in real life. It will spur the lifelong slacker to find the one thing he likes better than working retail and making fun of his customers: he’s going to make a movie.
A movie about working retail and making fun of his customers, natch.
There have been a few different ideas for Clerks 3 over the years, with one getting so far that there was a live script reading in 2020. Smith has suggested in the past that the holdout was Jeff Anderson, who is more reluctant to return to the world of Clerks than the rest of the cast. Randal is irreplaceable, though, and without all of the leads on board, Smith has said that it’s a non-starter. This time, Smith brings back Marilyn Ghigliotti, who played Dante’s girlfriend Veronica in Clerks. She is the rare View Askew lead who has not been seen in another of Smith’s movies since, making her return especially significant.
The first Clerks centered on one very bad day in the life of Dante Hicks, a convenience store worker who got called into work on his day off and spent the whole shift dealing with belligerent customers, freak occurrences, a sex-obsessed ex-girlfriend, and his obnoxious best friend, Randal. Clerks II saw Dante ready to settle down and get married — but secretly in love with someone else, and dealing with the reality that he has one day to decide where his heart lies.
Clerks 3 will be released later this year.
